Growing up trilobite

If you've ever held a trilobite fossil, seen one in a classroom, or walked by one in a store, chances are it was Elrathia kingii, one of the most common and well-recognized trilobites, and collected by the hundreds of thousands in western Utah. But despite the popularity of this species, scientists had not determined how it grew—from hatchling to juvenile to adult—until now. New work from the American Museum of Natural History published today in the journal Papers in Palaeontology describes the development and growth rate of Elrathia kingii—only the second such dataset to be compiled for a trilobite—allowing for the first comparison among trilobite species.

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